


Choices

by bethejerktomybitch



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Realities, Alternate Universes, And I will defend him with all my heart, F/M, He deserves happiness, I love Ward, Poor Life Choices, Skyeward - Freeform, Skyeward all the way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 23:02:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9519854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bethejerktomybitch/pseuds/bethejerktomybitch
Summary: Five universes in which their choices keep Skye and Ward apart, and one in which they lead them together.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So, I recently started watching Agents of SHIELD, and I am absolutely in love with Grant Ward, more specifically with him and Skye. I just finished Season 2 and I will never forgive the writers for making him a traitor, so I wrote this little piece in which he isn't (sort of). I hope you enjoy it and leave some comments!

_One_

 

In the first universe, there is blood and pain and traitors, and he is one of them.

 

Skye kneels on the cold bathroom floor and carves his name into a picture with trembling hands, followed by words she never thought she would say about him. Ward is Hydra.

 

She whispers the words into the empty room, and they taste like copper in her mouth, but she forces herself to repeat them again and again, as if somehow that would make them more real. "Ward is Hydra.", she mumbles, her voice thick with uncried tears. "Ward is Hydra. Ward is Hydra. Ward is..."

 

Skye hesitates. The sentence feels all wrong, like those particular words can never be in that particular order, not without tearing apart the world as she knows it, and suddenly another words appears in her mind. Mine.

 

_Ward is mine._

 

Except he isn't. Nor will he ever be. Because he's made his choice, and she's made hers, and in this universe, their choices do nothing but tear them apart.

 

* * *

 

 

_Two_

 

In the second universe, it's not one of them who makes the choice that seals their fate. It's Jiaying who makes a choice; Jiaying who chooses not to fall in love with the American doctor, who chooses not to neglect her duty to the Inhumans.

 

Of course, she still leads her people into battle against SHIELD. But in this universe, there is no Skye to stop her. Instead, there is Ward standing at her side, doing what he does best - wreaking havoc on the world and smiling while he does it, because there is not a single person in it he deems worth saving.

 

(Except maybe the brown-haired girl who picked a daisy in the park and caught his gaze when she walked past him. But she's not here, and he doesn't even know if she was there in the first place. Lately, he can never tell.)

 

* * *

 

_Three_

 

In this universe, Ward doesn't get caught when he burns down the house. Instead, he runs. He runs as far as he possibly can and never turns back, and that's all there is to it.

 

* * *

 

 

_Four_

 

There is also a universe in which Hydra makes a choice, except they're not really making a choice. It's more like they mess up, neglect Whitehall's orders and never get to Jiaying and Cal in the first place.

 

Cal takes her to America just after their baby girl is born, and Daisy grows up in Milwaukee with ice cream and father-daughter-dances, just like Cal always imagined it to be.

 

And when SHIELD goes down, she doesn't cry in a bathroom about a man she thought she could love. Instead, she frowns at the TV when they announce it and doesn't give the dark-haired man that was among those who were arrested another thought.

 

* * *

 

 

_Five_

 

In this world, Skye simply says no. She says no when Coulson asks her to join SHIELD, she says no when he asks her to at least give it a thought. And she says no when the dark-haired man on Coulson's team who introduced himself as Agent Ward tells her that this is the best chance she's ever gonna get at finding her parents.

 

Funny how one little word can seal two persons' fate.

 

* * *

 

 

_And one_

 

And finally, finally there is one universe in which everything goes the way it's supposed to.

 

Jiaying falls in love with Cal.

Skye - then Daisy - is born on July 2nd, 1988.

Hydra gets to them and takes her away.

She says yes to Coulson.

 

And then Ward meets her and takes one look into those deep, dark brown eyes and knows he's found someone worth fighting for.

 

He still becomes a traitor though. But not to SHIELD, to Hydra. To Garrett. He feeds them wrong information that eventually lead to Hydra's downfall, and when the team learns about his role in it, Skye gives him one of her blending white smiles.

 

"You're a hero.", she whispers.

 

Ward leans down and kisses her, and thanks the Lord that he lives in this universe and not in one of the others in which he never got to feel _this._

 

 

 


End file.
